


Hues Familiar and Unknown

by briaeveridian



Series: Modern AUs [5]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ben POV, Ben is a painter, Drabble, F/M, Fluff, Happy Ending, Modern Setting, One Shot, One True Pair, Plot What Plot, Soft Ben Solo, pure fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:14:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27254011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/briaeveridian/pseuds/briaeveridian
Summary: He sees her in dreams and paints her in waking life. But he doesn't know her, despite his yearning to. One day, long after he accepts she's a figment of his imagination, he encounters this known stranger who adorns his gallery walls.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Modern AUs [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1918042
Comments: 12
Kudos: 47





	Hues Familiar and Unknown

**Author's Note:**

> This is a companion piece to May These Words Find You. I just love imagining their bond in different universes!

Sleep each night is tinged with the same hues, startling and foreign at first, but gradually comforting and intimate. Her face fills with mirth and grief in equal measure, stitched into her warm skin. The askance view makes him question if she is coming to look at him or turning away. He waits for what comes next, suspended while gazing. 

By morning, he wakes with her silhouette emblazoned on his mind. It’s bright and clear, details lit by a glow beyond. Her motion is perpetually stilled but the energy of her form stays with him, giddy and seeking escape.

In reality, he doesn’t know her.

Ben has been observing this woman for weeks. It’s bewildering and leaves him winded. When asleep, his mind reaches for her, fingers stretching to grasp at the fabric of her shirt, at the tendrils of loose-flying hair. He’s not even sure she exists. He’s heard that humans fill their dreams with faces they’ve encountered before. But he’s certain that this woman would have left an impression deep enough to blister his consciousness.

For his whole life, he has had a tendency to _construct_ in great depth and nuance, from sculpture to paint and beyond. After spending years observing, detailing, and capturing the likeness of various people, perhaps he has stashed some features away, only to compile them into a full individual who haunts him.

Ben doesn’t fail to acknowledge how creepy these nighttime infatuations are. _If no one else is aware of this, perhaps there’s no harm in it? Perhaps the fixation can simply be a tether to the physical plane, one that keeps me rooted_. He has to console himself frequently, much to his chagrin.

Every blank canvas calls out to him, demanding nothing but depictions of this mysterious woman. Through nocturnal visions, he becomes an expert in the specific curve of cheek and arc of brow. He translates her through pigment, laboriously but with delight. The biggest challenge is to pull himself away, to reconnect with the present. 

_Maybe it doesn’t keep me grounded after all_.

(One of his main hobbies is chastising himself.)

How many paintings has he done wherein she is the subject? Dozens, he’s sure. Many of them include hidden references to her, abstractions that hold visual organization and significance only he can decipher.

He has tried to paint anything else, but it always ends up being her. Woven into the fibers of the canvas, she hides, gleaming in the rich pigments of his paints. She has her own color scheme, vivid and lucent without being ostentatious. There’s sunlight in her tones that Ben hovers over, trying to get exactly right to match the radiance she casts upon his closed eyelids.

He wonders how long and how deep his obsession will become. _Is it a chasm that will engulf me? Or do I leap to my doom_? Willing or not, the descent is inevitable. And the fall only accelerates as he sleeps more and more, a mania of oblivion and the respite of _her_.

Ben has to admit; it’s nice to feel something positive.

His life has been a series of disappointments, most of them his own fault, like dominoes that fall quickly and precisely into the next that result in a mess on the floor. Ben’s life has been an unintended pursuit of entropy. Dedicating himself to the creative path offered some semblance of meaning where he previously had none, agency taking the place of helplessness. 

Through his hands, he crafts things new and orderly. He assembles the pieces that suit him and tosses aside the rest. It’s a relief he has this skill, at least, though it would have been helpful to pick up a few others along the way.

On this wishlist of necessary skills for adulthood are mundane abilities, such as _talking to people_ or _managing bills_ or _carving out time to reconnect with family_. Of course, his family never put forth the effort either, and Ben tired years ago of the onus resting solely on his shoulders. Long after his frame broadened in his late teens, it was still too much of a burden for an individual to carry.

What would help with Ben’s self-imposed isolation is a dog. The thought teases him often, weaving through the tangle in his brain, insistent and sincere. Another living creature beyond himself could bring a balance that he craves, as well as energy to the minimally furnished flat. It exists in whites and greys and blacks with a few low-maintenance plants here and there. A dog would fill everything with such _urgent life_.

If he could stand to look at his own work once complete, the bare walls would be covered in the woman. She would adorn his space to the same extent of his dreams. But he can never create a satisfactory depiction of her. The end product invariably pales in comparison to the forceful spirit he witnesses when sleeping. 

He aims to reach an amorphous objective to paint her in as many different contexts as possible. Scenes and atmospheres shift and ecologies vary dramatically between the pieces; deserts and jungles, roiling oceans, snowy places, the emptiness of space with only stars lighting her skin. His attempts are fervent, reverent. The brush strokes never stray far from soft and serene as if he is touching skin. He traces her slowly, a memory he wills into reality.

Except he can’t, _because I made her up_.

Ben wishes the shadows of night would last longer. Only in the darkness can he witness her illumination, transcendent and lustrous against the bleak backdrop of his life. He knows, however absurdly, that a vacancy the size of this woman will persist for the rest of his life.

Strangely, people come to his art show that autumn, entitled _The Way She Marks Me_. To fill a gallery with her face does not appear worrisome. In fact, the critics and the passerby note his adoration, laud this specific preoccupation. It works in his favor, to create a series that reinvents the context for the same enigmatic presence. 

_No matter how unsettled and volatile the world, this woman remains unchanging, stuck in time and place. Like I am_.

He hopes one day, she’ll find release. Because to be stuck in these paintings seems like an utterly depressing existence. One day, he’ll free her. But for now, he’s much too possessive. There are details he hasn’t yet perfected, from the depth of her eyes to the way her hair curls around her ear.

 _If I release her, will she stop visiting me_?

A thought occurs to him sometime later, burgeoning courage that takes shape like clay between expert fingers. He is neither impulsive nor decisive. But the air spurs his own, buffeting around him, whispering encouragement.

As he walks the park to clear his mind one morning, he spots an uproar of activity that attracts him magnetically. This alone is irregular, as crowds usually make him change course to avoid any raucous gatherings such as this. 

But today, he decides to investigate. There’s a simmering excitement, a fizzing gurgling up in him like soda pop. A chorus of barks brings him closer, faster. He sees a sign for canine adoption and a grin blooms on his face.

 _Maybe this is what I’ve been waiting for_. How bizarre that an opportunity would present itself this swiftly after letting the idea nest in his mind. For once, Ben decides firmly to see the unexpected through.

In front of him sits an arrangement of dog kennels boasting canines of various creeds and statures. Most of them bounce and yelp, eager to be released and run across the park, to cavort in the sunlight. The adults nearly match the excitement levels of the squealing children. 

Far off to the side where there is less noise and chaos sits an older dog, leashed and exhausted. This one catches his attention. It’s mottled black and grey with white hairs on the chin. When he approaches, it looks up at him with eyes that say _At last, you’re here_.

He instantly falls in love.

Only then does he notice the human attending his selected companion. His breath is ripped from him by something external, visceral, and violent. When he sees her face, he stumbles backward, unmoored and flailing in the bright light.

She stares at him, similarly gutted, jaw open and eyes gaping.

“Who are you?” she demands, startled into discourtesy.

He cannot reply at once, words seemingly swept away by the morning breeze. Within the cage of his chest, a beat most fierce pumps blood through his body. Stunned and stuttering, he eventually manages to croak out a response.

“I’m… Ben.” He would usually feel embarrassed by that kind of delivery in front of someone who makes his face burn with shades from the left side of the ROYGBIV end of the color spectrum. “Do you… know me?”

She turns her face partially, untrusting, uncertain, or unbelieving. Then she blinks rapidly, flustered but brazen. “Yes. I’ve seen you in my dreams but I never knew why. Or how.” Rose dusts her cheeks from the confession.

His mouth drops open. “I’ve dreamt of you, too. I wasn’t going to say that, obviously, but you said it first so it seems less weird and I can’t believe it’s you…” he trips over the words and silences himself with a visible gulp.

The woman rearranges the leash and stands. “My name is Rey,” she says with a surprising degree of composure. “This is Chewie. It’s nice to finally meet you, Ben. Are you here for the dog?” Her eyes become marvelously warm.

He nods. “And hopefully more than that.”

Rey smiles and he feels the impulse to paint one last portrait of her before she saturates his life with more color and joy than a canvas ever could.

**Author's Note:**

> ✨Thank you for reading ✨ 
> 
> You can find me on [tumblr](https://briaeveridian.tumblr.com/) where my SW obsession lives aggressively.


End file.
